As is well known, gas turbine engines are typically made up of a rotary compressor coupled to and driven by a turbine wheel. Hot gases of combustion generated in a combustor are directed against the turbine wheel to drive the same by a nozzle on the outlet side of the combustor. The gases of combustion are generated by combusting fuel injected into the combustor with the oxygen contained in compressed air received from the compressor.
Historically, in order to obtain good flame stability and uniformity as well as to prevent the formation of hot spots which could induce large thermal stresses within the apparatus and to prevent carbon buildup due to poor combustion which could in turn result in erosion of the nozzle and the turbine wheel by particulate carbon resulting from such buildup, a large fraction of the total cost of a turbine engine has resided in the cost of the fuel injectors.
This relatively high cost is due to the fact that many turbine fuel injection systems rely on so-called pressure atomization type fuel injectors which are designed to provide an extremely high degree of atomization of fuel under widely varying environmental conditions. In order to do such, such injectors are precision formed and may require numerous, extremely precise, machining operations in the course of their fabrication.
Even when the injection system relies on so-called air blast atomization, fairly high levels of precision are required in order that all injectors be very nearly identical so as to assure uniformity of fuel flow from one injector location to the other to prevent the formation of hot spots. Again, high cost results.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the above problems